Friday, November 10, 2006

Celluloid heroes

My temptation to call this post “Hiro’s Heroes” is all but overwhelming at this point, but I’m going to hope I come up with something better before I get finished.

I did! Thank God for the Davies brothers.

Random reactions to HEROES, the only TV show I'm watching:

* I was, at first, baffled and intrigued by the stripper character (Nikki). Her power seemed rather freaky – did her mirror image actually somehow come to life, stepping out of the looking glass, as it were, into solid, physical reality, to do the things that the stripper couldn’t or wouldn’t do for herself? And if so, did that mean that the two basically switched places, and Nikki herself was trapped in the mirror, while her alter ego was out rampaging around?

It was with a rather odd, abrupt rush of simultaneous disappointment and satisfaction that I realized, sometime in the second episode, that her power wasn’t anything remotely that Gaimanesque – she’s just The Rose And The Thorn, that’s all. Making The Rose persona an Internet stripper is a very Modern Age updating of the character, but other than that, she’s pretty much a straight swipe – er… tribute. Yeah. That's it. She's a tribute.

* I like pretty much all the characters in the show. And it would actually be hard for me to pick favorites. I like the earnest, somewhat bewildered telepathic cop (Matt). I like the plucky, perky indestructible cheerleader (Claire). I like the idealistic younger brother guy who apparently has the powers of the Mimic (Peter). I’m not wild about the drug addict artist guy (Isaac), but, well, so far he’s been pretty obnoxious, so that’s understandable. I can’t say I admire big brother the politician (Nathan) much, but he’s an interesting and enjoyable character, and pretty clearly has an arc to go through. The stripper is okay, although, honestly, she’s gotten a little whinier lately than I find ideal. And, like everyone else, I find Hiro’s enthusiastic embrace of his powers (which are, admittedly, pretty much the coolest powers any of them got) to be enormously charming.

Having said all that, did they have to make both super-chicks blonde? For that matter, did they have to make the cast so overwhelmingly white? So far, the only black guy in the show (DL) seems to be sort of a creep. Although, with Nikki's kid (Micah) turning out to have powers too, they’re starting to redress that. Hopefully we’ll start seeing that it’s not just white folks that can have super powers.

* Mad props to whoever came up with the idea of putting the comic book by the clairvoyant artist in as a story element. It’s a fabulous visual prop that wouldn’t work anywhere near as well in any other medium.

* Hiro jumped into the future when he beamed himself to New York City? Way cool!

* Hiro’s buddy better not get caught watching strippers on his work computer.

* Most of the cliffhanger endings in this show have been fabulous, especially Claire waking up on an autopsy table, and Future Hiro coming back to tell Peter how to save the world. But the ending where Peter passes the message on to Present Day Hiro over the phone isn't dramatic at all.

* That bit where Nathan blasts off into the sky, and then goes supersonic? Awesome. I got wood.

* I wonder if Syler, the villain, has multiple super powers? Or if he also has mimic powers, like Peter, and he's stealing body parts from super powered people so he can get a ‘charge’ from them?

* I should really learn everyone's names. It's a problem I have with big ensemble dramas on TV.

And now, I have learned everyone's names, and updated this post, thanks to the wonderful SuperFiancee. Once again... Luckiest. Man. In. The. UNIverse.

8 Comments:

If you haven't already, you should really check out Battlestar Galactica. I think you'd like it. The first two seasons are probably out on DVD.

I'm glad you did this - HEROES is a show that has intrigued me, but I've been reluctant to start watching it sans some kind of recommendation from someone who's taste I trust. However - I'm just not sure when I'd be able to watch it. My always esteemed wife has gotten hooked on the (surprisingly watchable) GREY'S ANATOMY, and that, plus the aforementioned BG and LOST (getting stupider by the episode, but I'm kinda committed now) take up most of my limited TV watching time.Right now, we're still trying to get through last season's GREY'S ANATOMY, so maybe once we've caught up, we can add another show to the repetoire. If so, it'll definitely be HEROES.

I'm in a bind with BATTLESTAR. I'm not going to start watching it unless I can see what I've missed first. But I'm also not going to spend $100 to watch something that I haven't actually watched yet.

I know, the solution is, watch an episode, see if I like it, if I do, watch a few more, then buy the DVD sets to get caught up. But I'm sure you know how hectic scheduling TV time can be when you have kids in the house. Just remembering to, and then actually finding a way, to watch HEROES every Monday at 9 is a chore. (And SuperFiancee always has to read to Super Adorable Kid at 9, anyway, so she always misses the first ten or fifteen minutes, which sucks.)

And then, you know, I have so little recreational time, I'm loathe to commit another hour out of it a week to TV. Which is why I don't even TRY to figure out when BATTLESTAR is on.

I'm completely skipping over the post (as you and I have discussed this stuff at length), but wanted to mention that I was really struck with something in your comment threads...And then, you know, I have so little recreational time.

It just doesn't seem so long ago that you had all the recreational time in the world. Or so it seemed.

Sorry for shanhai-ing your comment threads. Just had a moment and wanted to share. (You know doubt know the look on my face right now.)

Yeah, I had a great deal of recreational time, and nothing to fill it in with. And I was lonely. And felt unloved, and unnecessary, and utterly superfluous.

I'll happily trade some free time for losing those feelings permanently (and I have!) and I think any sane person would agree with me.

I actually had planned to go back and fill in the names, as I have them in the reference material I was referring to as I did my random comments. Then I took a call and got distracted and decided to just post it. Eden's name was the first one I'd filled in before the call; I honestly had never heard her name while watching the show. And I did know Matt, but couldn't remember any of the others besides Hiro.

But thanks, as always, for the assist. I could not do the things I do without you, baby. And I would not want to.

Geez, guys, get a room ^_^Eden is the name of our niece (on Kathy's side of the family)I've been marinating doing some posts on Heroes on my blog since you mentioned you were going to do one in your last post. I've got a review of last Monday's episode written up that I had to go back and take out the descriptions next to the names that I put in mainly for your benefit (since I read your earlier post, wrote it, read the updated one, and edited) But I will put down this thought down online here first: Ali Larter (who plays Niki) was also in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as one of 4 female jewel thieves (attired in Black Widow like outfits, no less. Digression: if you haven't see it yet, and also wanna see Faith from Buffy in the Black Widow tights, check it out (or at least look for pictures online) Fanboy bonus: in the movie Eliza has the start of a scene out of a porn movie with a pizza delivery guy, with the delivery guy played by Marvel head honcho Joe Quesada) Anyway, in the scene where Larter pulls a switchblade on Jay, I thought if they did a movie/TV show based on the comic Strangers in Paradise, they need to get Larter to play Katchoo.

Add my name to the list of people encouraging you to check out BSG. It really is quite... an improvement... to the original. Wow, when I consider that statement, it sort of starts to seep in just how insulting an understatement that is. Talk about damning with faint praise...

The new SciFi channel BSG series is to the original 70s series what broad-band cable-modem internet access is to 300-baud dial-up. And then some. And probably a bit more after that. It's really really REALLY better.

So, your birthday is getting close... what are you turning this year? Fifty?

Whatever age I'm turning, I go to sleep and wake up next to SuperFiancee every morning, and nobody else does, regardless of how much younger they may be than me. And that's all I have to say to that. ::thppppptttttt::